Service People: Scripting the Way to Success - Essay Example

Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons (2000, p.1) mentioned that the service sector that emerged as modern Western economies, have shifted from product driven markets to information based service driven markets which is evident from the entry of manufacturing and production companies like IBM, General Electric, General Motors, Tata Motors, Reliance Industries, Bajaj, etc. into business and financing services. Bitner, Booms and Mohr (1994) further mention that the worldwide quality movement that had swept the manufacturing sector over the last decade is beginning to take shape in the service sector.

Business organizations have rushed to adopt an empowerment approach to service delivery in which employees face customers ‘free of rulebooks’, encouraged to do whatever is necessary to satisfy them, but that approach may not be right for everyone (Mayle, 2006, p.155). According to Tronvoll (2011), negative emotions are usually the result of an unfavourable service experience and subsequently a trigger for customer complaint behaviour which makes it vital for the service provider to understand the emotional aspects of an unfavourable service experience in order to prevent damaging complaint behaviour.

Bitner, Booms and Mohr (1994) further mention that customer satisfaction is often influenced by the quality of the interpersonal interaction between the customer and the contact employee. It is in this context that how service quality can be improved through scripting among service people, which is increasing every day. Importance of Scripting among Service People Service marketing refers to the marketing of activities and processes rather than objects and the recent interest in service marketing is the increased recognition of the importance of the person – to – person encounter between buyer and seller – client and provider – to the overall success of the marketing effort is one of the consequences (Solomon, Surprenant, Czepiel and Gutman, 1985).

Johnston and Clark (2008) analyze the service operations from customer perspective and mentioned that the difference between a mediocre and an excellent experience lies more often than not with the person who serves them which is also their immediate point of contact. It is further emphasized that the service organizations must invest in meticulous process design and expensive technology so as to achieve the expected levels of customer satisfaction. Fachira, Sayers and Chen (2011) mentioned that service is often understood as a process of intangible activities which are provided for customers by frontline personnel which deliver a valued experience which include functional and technical dimensions.

In order to create a service experience with value, frontline personnel have to personally manage an array of social and technical elements related to their performance of a service. Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons (2000) mentions that developing consciousness on how it wants the service to be provided to customers, management can prescribe how the service worker will carry out his work on regular basis which may include alternative actions to take place when there is a potential for an actual service failure or breakdown of the expected activities.

Cappelli (2008) insists on more direct